1 Timothy 1:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Timothy was at Ephesus where Paul had sent him, and he had a difficult assignment. The church was troubled by infiltrators and Paul wanted him to address this problem, and ‘charge some that they teach no other doctrine.’ They are not to teach otherwise than the apostolic teaching, which lays out the teaching of the word of God. This word needs to be protected and the truth protected. There is a long sentence stretching through verses 3 and 4 which the modern translations tend to make a little easier and yet at the same time to weaken a little. The KJV adds the words ‘so do’ at the end of verse 4 to provide a main verb, but in modern English we would put a main verb at the beginning of the sentence, and so modern versions tend to change part of Paul’s description of the task into an imperative: carry on, remain, stay there to defend the truth. But it is really all part of what Paul had besought Timothy to do, and Paul is holding him to that original instruction. This was the purpose of his remaining: ‘that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.’ He is to defend the truth. Right here at the beginning of the Christian church some people are swerving from the truth and going off the rails. Is that surprising? No, because that is what the devil is trying to bring about. That is what the enemy wants. How can he stop the testimony of the Christian church? How can he take away people's joy and peace in believing? By bringing in error, by working through human weakness and sometimes selfishness, and stirring up people who will have proud minds and much imagination and will begin to pollute or add to the truth of God. It is Satan's constant tool, always throwing in error, bombarding the church with error. One of the most important things we can be doing to guard the truth, and this is why Timothy is left at Ephesus. They are teaching wrong things; they have got to be stopped or put out of the church, because they will do so much damage – one or the other. He does not name them. Perhaps they are silly people and he's not going to dignify them by naming them. Or perhaps some of them are winnable; they can be restored and brought back. But regardless, Timothy is given a very solemn commandment. They are to teach no other doctrine than that which is taught by the apostles. We learn that to add to Scripture or to change it is absolutely prohibited. Timothy is appointed as a prototype pastor there, and is to command them that they teach no other doctrine. The implication is that if they will not obey, then they may have to be put out of the church. Perhaps some of them do not belong to the church in Ephesus. In that case Timothy will still remonstrate with them, and teach clearly that what they are doing is wrong. What exactly were they doing? We are told in verse 4. ‘Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith.’ Some translate ‘give heed to’ as ‘devote themselves to’, but that is a little strong. People are not to occupy their minds with these things. Neither are they to give heed to all the fables and the insistence on ceremonies of the Judaizers. There were various parties of false teachers: there were false prophets as well as Judaizers, there were storytellers, and there were the people who engaged in genealogies. What they were very fond of doing was taking certain personalities from the Old Testament, Joseph for instance, and writing a new version of his life. Or maybe they would take a person who was mentioned only one once in the Old Testament and write tremendously long fables about them and teach these things as the truth. So you would get an element of Old Testament greatly embellished, greatly stretched, greatly added to. Then they would make all kinds of elaborate applications and theories would develop out of this, and this was now being imported into the Christian church. It obscures the truth. They were also people who said, ‘Look, I am a true Jew, therefore I am privileged. I am automatically a child of God, accepted by him. How do I know? Well, I've studied my descent and don't you know that I am descended from so and so, various great biblical figures, and they set out the reasoning and their genealogies. If you could be descended from a priest or a levite or a prophet or somebody special person, then you were home and dry and you trusted in that and you didn't concern yourself about your sin or repentance or the forgiveness of God or really having a relationship with him. So they studied the genealogies and they argued about them and they taught about them. All these things minister or administer questions and perplexities and give no solid answers.What they were very fond of doing was taking certain personalities from the Old Testament, Joseph for instance, and writing a new version of his life. Or maybe they would take a person who was mentioned only one once in the Old Testament and writing tremendously long fables about them and teaching these things as truth. So you would get an element of Old Testament greatly embellished, greatly stretched, greatly added to. Then they would make all kinds of elaborate applications and theories would develop out of this, and this was now being imported into the Christian church. You can no longer see the truth. ‘Rather than godly edifying which is in faith.’ The word ‘edifying’ comes from a compound Greek word meaning building up. It's about architecture and construction, and if a house is in Paul’s mind then no doubt it is the temple. The thing that matters in ministry is building up of the church: building it up by evangelism, by teaching sanctification, by teaching about God, his plans, his ways, his nature, and his loving-kindness. The modern translations go for an alternative reading found in a number of early manuscripts which we believe are inferior. They will give a word like stewardship. Avoid things which minister questions rather than ‘stewardship’ – of the truth presumably – dispensing, distributing of the truth. But ‘edifying’ fits the surrounding words of the Apostle very much better than ‘stewardship’. That is the pastor’s aim: to build the church with evangelism and sanctification, and here then is the perfect summary of all pastoral theology.